_portrait.jpg){kind=link}
She says a lot more but my eye rolling made me stop reading after the first five sentences
https://xcancel.com/ImBreckWorsham/status/1986436503988297774#m
this post was submitted on 08 Nov 2025
738 points (96.6% liked)
Leopards Ate My Face
8102 readers
1410 users here now
Rules:
- The mods are fallible; if you've been banned or had a post/comment removed, please appeal.
- Off-topic posts will be removed. If you don't know what "Leopards ate my Face" is, try reading this post.
- If the reason your post meets Rule 1 isn't in the source, you must add a source in the post body (not the comments) to explain this.
- Posts should use high-quality sources, and posts about an article should have the same headline as that article. You may edit your post if the source changes the headline. For a rough idea, check out this list.
- For accessibility reasons, an image of text must either have alt text or a transcription in the post body.
- Reposts within 1 year or the Top 100 of all time are subject to removal.
- This is not exclusively a US politics community. You're encouraged to post stories about anyone from any place in the world at any point in history as long as you meet the other rules.
- All Lemmy.World Terms of Service apply.
Also feel free to check out !leopardsatemyface@lemm.ee (also active).
Icon credit C. Brück on Wikimedia Commons.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
But your story just continues to show that nobody with such strong opinions seem to care until it directly effects them. In your case, it sounds like they are right on the border of realizing this. It just sucks that this is what it takes for them to even consider this.
It's tragic, yes. But, don't underestimate the effects of propaganda, repeat exposures that dwarf my face time with the guy. He doesn't have my range of experience. He's just a lonely, 50-something man that's had more negative than positive experiences in life. He has tunnel vision.
In my mind, he's responsible for his choices and frame-of-mind. But that's not going to stop me from sharing my perspective without confronting or proselytizing. Insecurity is a mother fucker.
Talking to him and being a good person can do more than you realize.
I was raised white Christian nationalist, although we didn't call it that and I wouldn't have realized that's what I was. I was taught all the conservative bullshit, both politically and socially. Thankfully there was always a part of me that was like "something isn't right here" and I kept my mouth shut and was never the bully going around mouthing off to gay kids or minorities, but I definitely thought things like "being gay is a choice" and "poor people should just work harder" and "abortion is something welfare queens do" but also "welfare queens have lots of babies for more money".
Being around people like you who were nonjudgmental and just talked about their point of view and occasionally gently challenged my beliefs without being confrontational opened my worldview and helped give me the courage to listen to the voice in my head that was saying something felt wrong with the belief system I was raised in. I'd always been taught things like liberals were stupid and lacked critical thinking skills and acted solely on emotions and I was young and kept in a bubble and was dumb enough to believe it until I started meeting people who proved otherwise. That was enough to start the cracks forming that eventually shattered the entire wall of lies. I'm now a raging socialist and I don't care how people live their lives as long as they aren't harming anyone else. I don't think I would have ended up that way if I wasn't someone who is willing to think for myself and who isn't afraid to be the "black sheep", because leaving that mindset lost me my family, but I definitely wouldn't have ever been able to start down the path I'm on if I was never exposed to people like you who started showing me the lies in the first place.
Kudos man. Happy to hear that. It's tough to assemble a cogent world view when the people closest to you muddy the waters by tugging emotional hooks. I've been there.
100%. Honestly more than anything were suffering a large scale collapse of community. First, the highway system and cars came in and carved up large-scale communities. Everyone riding around in their own personal pods, not having to interact with anyone else.
Then the internet comes in, allowing anyone and everyone to find material that conforms and confirms their biases. Forget about going out and touching grass. Has anyone spent any actual time in an average day brushing elbows with hundreds of strangers and holding casual conversations. Nothing stops stupid behaviors faster than being judged by the community around you.
That's what fixed the rest of what was left of my toxic worldview. I started working in healthcare. I've treated people from all over the world. I've treated people who speak so many different languages. I've treated people of all religions. I've treated different gender identities and sexual preferences. I've treated people I knew were rapists or murderers (fucking worst, but you grit your teeth and treat them like human beings who need healthcare). I've treated so many refugees from various places (love the refugees, keep them in the US!)
All of them are just people. I've met a lot of really shitty people and a lot of really good people. It's hard to hate a group of people when you meet individuals from a particular subset and realize they have the same hopes and fears as you. At the end of the day, we all just want to go to our respective homes and be safe and loved and alive and there shouldn't be anything political about that.
Not that you need me to tell you this, but you're a good person.
What's the best way to teach a kid to not play with fire?
Let them touch it. Hopefully they will only do it once
People who are below average intelligence take a lot longer time process new information and tend to hang onto myths much longer than smart people. Smart people can adapt to new information whereas these folks just can't. They are susceptible to being gaslit because they can't think critically. Personally, I don't think people below a certain intelligence level should be permitted to vote.
I'm going to disagree with you a bit here. I've seen first hand when intelligent people use all their additional cognitive ability to create rationalizations and pseudo-logical interpretations of questionable facts to avoid challenging their own assumptions. It takes a good dose of humility/integrity to admit that you were wrong and be willing to change course. That's not a feature of intelligence, at least not in the realm where it is typically measured.